


The Superior Pet

by catness



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Fairy Tales, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catness/pseuds/catness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not really fanfiction, just using some imagery. Loosely inspired by the fairy tale "The Superior Pet" from The Fairytale Tarot by Baba Studio.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Superior Pet

**Author's Note:**

> Not really fanfiction, just using some imagery. Loosely inspired by the fairy tale "The Superior Pet" from The Fairytale Tarot by Baba Studio.

James Wilson was a big fan of House, M.D. Flunking the exams and having been booted from the medical college did not destroy his fascination with medicine. He practiced his dream profession through watching TV shows about doctors and clinics, trying to diagnose the patient de jour before the regular cast finished squabbling over their relationships and got down to business. Sometimes he imagined himself in place of his fictional namesake, although they had nothing in common except for the perpetual turbulence in personal life. While Dr. Wilson on the TV screen enjoyed a successful career, gratitude of the patients, respect of the colleagues and a bizarre friendship with an eccentric medical genius, James was stuck with a low-paid position of a lab technician doing drug research for a small pharmaceutical company, and his only patients (or better said, victims) were white mice. His duties were less rewarding, both morally and financially, than saving human lives; on the other hand, the relatives of dead mice never showed up with threats and lawsuits, so it was a much safer job.

One day he stumbled upon a mouse with a broken leg. It had somehow escaped from the cage and climbed a bookshelf, where it was hiding behind a heap of printouts. Sick and injured animals were useless for experiments, and the correct protocol of dealing with them was euthanasia. But James felt sorry for the poor creature whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He took the mouse home.

His latest girlfriend was a neat freak and used to throw fits over silliest things, such as putting a milk carton in the refrigerator door where it could spoil a tad faster than in the middle. A mouse in the house was the last straw. "It's either it or me!" she proclaimed, wincing in disgust at the sight of a dirty-white fur ball crouched in the cage. 

"Good riddance," said James. He was secretly grateful to the mouse for providing him with an excuse to finally break up with the woman who was already grating on his nerves.

He named his new pet Gregory House, or Greg for short. The mouse's broken leg mostly healed, and soon Greg was merrily limping around the apartment - he just would not stay in the cage, no matter how safely it was secured, and always figured out a way to escape. It was impossible to put a mouse on a leash, and James feared that it would get lost in the hazardous mess his home became in the absence of female touch. But apparently Greg found the place hospitable and decided to stay for good. He didn't come when he was called (not that mice were supposed to do that), but showed up whenever he felt like it, nibbling on newspapers in the living room, littering the kitchen with crumbs of crackers and cheese, sitting on the edge of the sink and peering at James through the shower curtain, and even sneaking into his pocket and emerging out in the lab. 

Eventually James got used to Greg accompanying him to work. Pets were not allowed in the building, but a mouse was small and easy to hide whenever any of the supervisors were nearby. Greg seemed to understand it too, or maybe he was simply afraid of strangers, as he disappeared at the first sound of the door opening. James' work was tedious and lonely; it was comforting to hear the little creature scuttling somewhere behind his back while he was preparing and administering new medications to its less fortunate kinfolk, cleaning up the equipment or typing reports. 

Greg was also a good listener. He stared back with unblinking pink eyes and occasionally squeaked in reply when James was telling him about the progress of his latest experiment or complained about problems. James decided that the mouse was his lucky mascot. The company was running a series of tests of a new wonder drug, presumed to be the final breakthrough in cancer cure, and James hoped for the long-awaited pay raise.

Disaster struck from where it was least expected. When James arrived to work one morning, he discovered that all the mice developed a strange red rash and were wobbling around, bumping into each other. While James frantically performed the analyses, mice started to collapse. Before noon, they were all dead. James promptly informed the boss that the new serum did not meet the expectations, and in fact, turned out to be deadly. He was fired on the spot. The management couldn't care less for his protests that he had followed the instructions up to the letter and was not personally responsible for the formula. He hardly had time to pack his personal belongings and to pick Greg from his hideout under the medicine cabinet.

***

The night dragged on and on. James slouched on the couch in the living room, finishing the sixth bottle of beer and fidgeting with a trinket on his keychain - a tiny souvenir flashlight in a shape of a vicodin bottle with the immortal quote "Everybody lies" engraved on it. The mouse sat on the coffee table grooming himself, oblivious to his owner's misery.

"So what do you think we should do now, Greg?" James contemplated aloud. He got bored with the flashlight and threw the keys on the floor, reaching for the next beer. "I'd say screw those bastards. We can find a better job, can't we?"

Greg jumped down, grabbed the keyring in his teeth, and while James gaped in surprise, dragged it towards the open front porch door and disappeared outside.

There was no time to waste. Car keys were the last thing James wanted to lose, he had no spare set. He dashed out of the door and sprinted towards the tiny spark bouncing along the dark road - luckily, the flashlight was still on.

He could barely keep up with the little thief, especially with the six-pack of beer splashing in his belly; he had no idea that mice run so fast! The chase led him to the gates of the city park around the corner. The yellow dot of light flickered in the grass, pointing the way as James squeezed through the bushes, wading deeper and deeper into the park, which in the darkness of midnight seemed as wild as a forest.

Eventually he lost the trail and stopped, panting. But now there was an eerie golden light glimmering from between the trees at a distance; for a flashlight, it was too strong. Overcome with curiosity, James continued to walk forward, all the way to the clearing.

The strange light emanated from a huge yellow hemisphere mounted on a wide-rimmed disc; the whole construction floated right above the ground. A flying saucer - and in a city park, of all places?

One of the black specks on the rim of the disc began to grow, unfolding like a camera lens. James squinted, trying to get a better look. A ray of light blasted out of the opening and stung him in the forehead.

 

***

When he regained consciousness, he found himself floating face down in mid-air in the center of a small empty room with white walls. He was completely naked save for a light metal collar fastened around his neck. His head ached with dull pain. 

While he was wriggling around, trying to assume a more dignified vertical position, one of the walls slid open, letting in a glowing yellow figure. It was vaguely humanoid, resembling a crude stick drawing with a round smiley face, two arms and two legs. One of its legs was thinner than the other and was stuck at a weird angle. It widened its slit of a mouth and squeaked: "You are awake."

"I highly doubt it," said James. He pinched himself, then vigorously rubbed his eyes until they hurt. But the apparition didn't vanish. Instead, it emitted a squeaky chuckle and said:

"No, it's not a dream. Your puny imagination is not ripe enough to dream up anything that outlandish." 

"Who... what the hell are you?" 

"You may continue to call me Greg," replied the apparition and winked a round pink eye at James. "It's really a relief to get rid of the Earth's biodimensional field and to let my body assume its natural form again."

"Greg the... You are not a mouse?!" 

"Of course I am a mouse," squeaked the alien. "It's just that mice are not what you think they are."

James clutched his forehead. The process that at the moment went on inside his head could hardly be called "thinking". Rather, it was an incoherent mess of random utterances such as "dammit", "what the hell", "this is absurd" and "I need another beer".

"One of your human science fiction writers," continued the alien (James just couldn't think of him as 'Greg') "inadvertently came very close to exposing our secret. In several of his books, he presented mice as a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings in control of Earth's destiny. Naturally, we had to put an end to his further exploits before it went too far and somebody took it seriously."

"Mice. Right. Next thing you tell me is that my lab mice were actually experimenting on me."

"Don't be an idiot. It was me who was experimenting on them. With a little help from you, to be fair, even though you were unaware of it, and in spite of us having diametrically opposite goals."

"And your goal was..." Dozens of mice corpses covered with red sores visualized themselves in James' mind, and a chill went down his spine.

"Biological weapons. It was a perfect success. You got sacked, I got promoted, and now we are heading to my home planet where I can put the serum into mass production."

"Wait a second. Mice? All of them are sentient? The small, helpless, expendable critters, locked in cages and killed by thousands in every pharmaceutical lab?"

"Most of these are not very sentient, no more than a couple of times smarter than an average human. Don't bother pitying them. That's how the Universe works. It's a mouse-eat-mouse world."

"This is absurd. Mice. Weapons." James finally managed to stand up and was swaying on his feet, staring at the yellow smiley, which out of a sudden seemed to assume a sinister expression, even though the corners of its crudely cut mouth were still curved upwards. "Why did you bring me here? What do you need me for?"

"Well," the alien shrugged, "strictly speaking, I don't need you anymore. But I got rather attached to you and decided to keep you. It would be a shame to lose such a loyal pet."

"A pet? But it's you who were my..." James choked on the last word because his throat suddenly was on fire. He lost the balance and thrashed around in convulsions, trying to tear the burning collar off his neck. It didn't budge.

The alien flicked the remote control in his hand, and the pain ceased. "A pet is the one who wears a collar," he chuckled. 

"You bastard!" James tried to step towards the alien so he could kick his glowing yellow butt, but no matter how he flailed his limbs, he could not move an inch.

"Not so fast, Jimmy," said the alien. "The safety harness is designed to restrict your movements."

James cringed. "I hate that name."

"I happen to like it, so get used to it."

"You can't keep me on a leash!"

"I can and I will. It's for your own safety, I wouldn't want you to run around freely in a place full of sophisticated technology. Somebody might get hurt. Besides, it incorporates a shield that provides basic protection from cuddies - I mean, cats. At least for the start; when you'll become sufficiently docile, perhaps I can equip you with a simple nuclear bazooka or something equally user-friendly."

"Cats? CATS? They are also... super-intelligent multidimensional beings?"

The alien shuddered and his round eyes flashed bright pink. "You don't want to know, Jimmy. Believe me, you just don't want to know."


End file.
